Mr. Chairman,

I would like to associate myself with the statement by the Chairman of the G-77. My delegation had read with interest the reports presented under this agenda item, which has facilitated an updating on developments in the Conference of Parties meetings of the various Environment Conventions, while focussing attention on issues where our deliberations, in this forum, would bring a much needed value addition.

Environment is among the priority issues before us. Our planet has been plundered. Some developed countries are not only overusing limited natural resources to exhaustion, they are thereby contributing heavily to world pollution. Some of them are exporting their dirty industries to poorer countries. Harmful chemicals, banned in producing countries, are being exported to poorer countries, in the booming name of global freedom of trade. Even thousand-year-old trees are being cut in the name of enterprise. The golden rule here seems to be that, "He who has gold, rules." This rape of Mother Earth must be stopped. Mankind cannot be crucified on the cross of company profits.

The UN Conference on Environment and Development at Rio launched a global partnership on environment and development, which acknowledged that sustained economic growth, eradication of poverty and the attempt to meet the basic needs of the people constituted overriding priorities for developing countries. While we recognized that the right to development must be fulfilled so as to equitably meet developmental and environmental needs of present and future generations, it was also recognized that meeting the environmental objectives in Agenda 21 would place additional, even onerous, burdens on developing countries. Therefore, we forged a balance between developmental and environmental imperatives and created a framework for assistance by the international community to complement and support the efforts of developing countries.

At the UNGA Special Session to Review Agenda 21 (UNGASS) last year, we recognized that there has been considerable progress at the national level. At considerable cost to themselves, many developing countries have put in place local Agenda 21s. We, in India, to cite some examples of the efforts being undertaken at the national level by developing countries, have evolved a National Conservation Strategy and Policy Statement on Environment and Development, a National Forestry Policy and a Policy Statement on Abatement of Pollution. We are in the process of debating in Parliament a National Action Plan to consolidate conservation strategies in biodiversity. We have also attached the highest importance to a broad based participatory approach, involving all sections of society in evolving a National Policy on Environment that recognizes the crucial role of women. To ensure complete transparency in this process, we have established a national statutory Environment Authority and are in the process of establishing a National Mechanism to provide relief for accidents occurring in the handling of hazardous substances.

At the same time, we also need to acknowledge the recognition at UNGASS at the disappointing lack of fulfillment of international commitments voluntarily entered into in Agenda 21, by industrialized countries, to assist developing countries. It is a matter of deep concern to India that six years after Rio, there is a discernible effort to erode the framework of partnership built laboriously at Rio - notably the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities - with efforts to prescribe equal obligations and liabilities on unequal partners. We had also hoped that the UNGASS would effectively identify and address constraints in the implementation of Agenda 21, particularly transfer of environmentally sound technology on favorable terms to developing countries since this is a crucial component if the objectives of sustainable development are to be achieved. Against this backdrop, we believe that the effort to make developing countries undertake even further obligations at this stage is not justified, since there has been little progress in implementation of the commitments voluntarily undertaken by developed countries in areas such as resources, transfer of technology, etc.

CLIMATE CHANGE & KYOTO PROTOCOL

India will participate actively in the forthcoming Convention of Parties Meeting of the Framework Convention on Climate Change in Buenos Aires. At the same time, I would reiterate the call by the nonaligned countries at the recent Durban Summit to developed countries to undertake urgent and effective steps to implement their commitments under the Kyoto Protocol through domestic action. It is our belief that emissions trading for implementation of such commitments can only commence after issues relating to the principles, modalities, etc. of such trading, including the initial allocation of emissions entitlements on an equitable basis to all countries, have been agreed to by the FCCC. I would also again reiterate the urgent need for immediate measures to provide developing countries with the necessary financial and technological resources and environmentally sound technology to enable them to meet their existing commitments under the FCCC.

CONVENTION ON BIODIVERSITY

We will also be participating actively in the forthcoming COP on Biodiversity. In this connection, one of the issues that needs to be urgently addressed is the development of proprietary patents based on biodiversity/traditional knowledge of indigenous communities, without obtaining the prior informed consent of the developing countries concerned and without coming to any agreement on benefit sharing with these developing countries, which are storehouses of such biodiversity and indigenous knowledge. There is a clear and pressing need to extend and render effective protection to indigenous biotechnology, developed over the millennia, to ensure a flowback of benefits from patentees to original developers.